The mark was on him.
Now he came to the little schoolhouse where he first learned to read.
Facing it Father Cahill's tiny church, where he had learned to pray.
Beyond lay the green on which he had his first fight.

It was about his father.

Bruised and bleeding, he crept home that day--beaten.

His mother cried over him and washed his cuts and bathed his bruises.

A flush of shame crept across his face as he thought of that beating.